


it would be this

by amonitrate



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Season/Series 06, Soulless Sam Winchester
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-19
Updated: 2012-06-19
Packaged: 2017-11-11 11:56:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/478303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amonitrate/pseuds/amonitrate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>"I'm not trying to mess with you, Dean. It's what you said. Leverage. The vamps can use Lisa and Ben against you."</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	it would be this

**Author's Note:**

> mildly AU, taking place after "Clap Your Hands" in season 6 but before Sam's soul was restored, entirely due to the fact that I've been writing this since shortly after "Live Free and Twihard" originally aired. Thanks so much to [](http://destro.livejournal.com/profile)[ **destro**](http://destro.livejournal.com/) for support and [](http://oddmonster.livejournal.com/profile)[**oddmonster**](http://oddmonster.livejournal.com/) for an awesome beta. 

Sam followed the swing of his machete, the blade flicking blood in a messy arc as head toppled from body, only to see that the last vamp left alive had his brother pinned down on the litter-strewn floor of the warehouse.

The leader of the nest was straddling Dean’s hips, bent low over his torso, one of its hands clamping Dean’s wrists to the concrete above his head. Dean’s machete lay a few feet away out of his reach and he wasn't struggling and that was never a good sign.  
  
They’d followed hints of the escaped Alpha vamp to Sterling, Illinois and though there was no sign of the Alpha, they’d found an infestation of his children in an abandoned auto parts warehouse in the run-down industrial district. Luckily they weren’t as organized as the group in Limestone had been, though they’d put up a fight.

Last time, in that alley in Limestone, Sam had stood back and watched a vamp turn his brother as Dean hung stunned in its grip. This time he didn’t hesitate. He grabbed a fistful of the vamp's shaggy hair and swung his machete before it knew he was there.

The blade had dulled from use on the rest of the nest, so it took Sam two hacking attempts, the vamp writhing and howling in his grip, before the flesh of its neck split into raw meat. The howls turned to whistling gurgles and then went silent as Sam sawed through muscle and tendons and gristle until bone crunched and snapped and the head came away spraying blood. Sam tossed it over his shoulder and kicked the spurting body off his brother.

Underneath, Dean was drenched in red from the chest up, his shirts and jacket soaked through, hair slicked to the skull with it.

Dean scrubbed at his mouth with one sleeve before speaking. "You couldn't fucking pull it off me _first_?" He wasn't making a move to get off the floor. Just dragged his knees up, planted his boots and lay there, his chest fluttering unevenly, his attempts to pull in air echoing in the sudden quiet of the warehouse, strangling his words. "You and Gwen been spending time together, huh? You both think it's hilarious, seeing me dunked in vamp blood like I'm Carrie."

Sam crouched by his brother’s side and picked up one of his hands, peering at the bluish nail beds. Dean jerked away but his reflexes were slower than they should have been and he was blinking like he couldn’t quite get his eyes to focus.

"How much did he get?" Sam asked and yeah, when Dean turned his head, straining to check the perimeter for more vamps, there was a set of ragged punctures in his neck still leaking fresh blood into the gore.

"I don't--"

"The vamp, how long did he have you down?"

Dean screwed his face up and scrambled to his knees, nearly toppling over again before catching himself with one hand on the concrete and then flinching away from Sam’s attempt to steady him.

"Dean--"

" _Fuck_ , the bite, the fucking bite," Dean ground out, his eyes wide enough that the whites flashed in the dim light. "I gotta, gotta--" He broke off and just wavered there, staring at Sam.

He hadn't reacted like this after Gordon Walker had bit him. Sam tried for reasonable. "Even if some of the vamp's blood got in the wounds--"

" _If_?" Dean winced as he tried to wipe the blood away from his neck with the tail of his flannel shirt, but he had to know it was too late. If he was going to get infected it had already happened. This time, though, Sam would handle it better. Be upfront with his brother.

That's what had set Dean off last time, not knowing about the cure. That had been the mistake.

"If you'd just calm down and listen for a second. It doesn't matter, we've got the vamp right here, we can just--"

Dean made it to his feet and turned away, making a beeline for the door of the warehouse.

Sam picked up his brother's machete and followed. Found him at the open trunk of the Impala, carefully blotting the skin around the wounds on his neck with a wad of gauze soaked in holy water. It was a waste of time but Sam left him to it. Grabbed the spare gas can and an empty syringe from the box tucked with the first aid kit and went back into the warehouse, into the charnel ground of the nest.

It was past midnight in a Rust Belt industrial park so abandoned most of the street lights had burnt out. The chance of interruption might be slim but those still weren’t odds Sam liked to count on. He eyed his watch then bent to fill the syringe with blood from the vamp that had fed on his brother. He hadn't had time to notice before but there were five other bodies scattered around Dean’s vamp. Sam let out an impressed whistle. Sure, his brother had eliminated most of a nest on his own after he'd been turned the last time, but then he'd been on somewhat even footing, mostly vamp himself.

The syringe capped and nestled in the pocket of his jacket, Sam considered the echoing space of the warehouse.

Two of the vamps Dean had killed tonight were immature, probably teenagers. From the bone structure the smallest looked no older than twelve, but it was hard to tell without the head. So even with the Alpha out of the picture the vamps were stepping up their recruitment plans. Roping in kids. Samuel would be interested in that little tidbit.

He checked the time again and then set the gas can down. Started dragging the corpses into a line -- a pile would burn too unevenly. This would go faster with two, but Sam was pretty sure that his brother had lost enough blood that his help would just be a hindrance, would cause too much delay.

Sam was used to taking care of this kind of thing himself now anyways.

Once he'd gathered Dean’s five kills and his own seven he drenched them with gas and set them alight. Watched for a moment to make sure the fire would be adequate, wouldn't go out too soon, and then left the burning pile of bodies behind.

 

 

Outside the warehouse there wasn't any sign of the fire yet, but that wouldn't last long.

The Impala looked packed up and he could just see Dean slumped in the driver's seat. Sam frowned. They didn't have time for an argument, any minute now smoke from the burning corpses was bound to find its way out of a broken window somewhere. He tapped on the driver's window and Dean's head lifted and after Sam waved the gas can at him Dean popped the trunk. Sam stowed the empty can and carefully wrapped the full syringe in a piece of gauze and stuck it back into the first aid kit in case they needed it for the cure.

After slamming the trunk shut he crossed back to the driver’s door and pulled it open, standing over his brother.

"Slide over,” he said.

The gauze pad Dean had taped to his neck was already spotted with fresh blood. He'd scrubbed the vamp off himself the best he could but he still looked like he'd been on the wrong end of a chainsaw massacre. And the thousand-yard stare he was giving Sam wasn't helping matters.

"Dean, shove over."

Dean’s knuckles were white against the wheel. "No."

Sam considered just knocking Dean out but he hadn't had a chance to check him over for a concussion. They really didn't have time for this. A faint hint of black smoke was already leaking around the warehouse doors and Sam could just taste it bitter at the back of his tongue.

"Have you seen yourself in the mirror?” he snapped at his brother. “You're doing a good impression of Slasher Victim Number Three and we really don't need the attention right now. You're less noticeable on the passenger side so _move over_."

By now a dense cloud of smoke was gathering in the clear night air around the front of the warehouse. Sam thought about prying his brother's fingers away from the wheel but Dean finally shook his head and scooted to the other side of the car, making room for Sam to take over the driver’s seat. Sam ignored the rasp of cloth on leather from Dean's jittery shifting in the seat next to him and revved the Impala’s engine. He picked his way through the potholed, crumbled streets of Sterling’s deserted industrial wasteland, wondering why vampires were so in love with Illinois, and kept one eye on the rear view mirror until they hit the highway.

"Need a shower." Dean’s eyes were slitted against the glare of the oncoming headlights as Sam merged onto 88-East heading toward Chicago. His breathing had picked up pace, rasping and loud in the enclosed space of the car. Maybe he’d hyperventilate and pass out and make their getaway a little easier.

"It'll have to wait,” Sam said. “We need to put some distance between us and the flaming vampires first.”

It had been a bad idea, letting Dean get turned the last time. Hadn't it? The thing was, Sam wasn't entirely convinced it had been a bad idea, taking advantage of the opportunity when it had presented itself. They'd gotten the intel they needed, information they wouldn't have been able to get any other way, and it had led them to the Alpha. But Sam had made a tactical error or two. Approached it the wrong way, overestimated his ability to handle Dean, and he wasn't going to make that mistake again.

Sam shot a glance at his brother. “Are you... how do you feel?"

Dean lifted a shoulder. He stared out the windshield at the semi hauling past them fast enough to rattle even the Impala’s heavy frame. There were blue-brown marks under Dean's eyes, his sclera shot through with red.

"I need to know if you're gonna try for my throat while we're on the interstate," Sam said.

Dean slumped over again, let his head drop against the door frame. "It's not... I dunno. Can't tell yet."

"Well, that's reassuring."

"He said something, before he... you know." Dean waved at his neck.

"The vamp? What'd he say?"

"He laughed. Said it didn't matter what we did to his nest, 'cause there'll be -- there'll always be more of them."

"We knew that, though, right?” Sam checked the rear view, looking for any sign they were being followed. “That hivemind thing they have going on must let these guys share cheesy last words or something."

"He said. He said that we might have their Alpha, but-but now they have leverage."

"He said that?” Sam tapped the wheel. “Leverage?"

"Yeah."

Sam waited to see if Dean would put the pieces together but he just sat there, rubbing at his forehead. So Sam watched the lines of the highway for a few miles. Considered the options. Tried to trace out the consequences, but it was hard. Harder to anticipate Dean than he'd thought it would be when they'd joined back up. Hard to figure out whether he should follow his own impulses or figure out what the Sam his brother expected him to be would do.

He knew he was missing things, didn't pick up on things he should. Most of the time he didn't even notice what he was missing and other times it was like when he'd lost his two front baby teeth. A hole he could poke his tongue through, the soft gum underneath, the weird numb absence. The way everyone could see the gap when he smiled.

"You should call Lisa," Sam said finally.

"Fuck you."

"Dean--"

"No, seriously, fuck you, Sam. What the fuck are you playing at?"

Dean's hand fumbled under his jacket and he pulled out a flask from the inside pocket. Sometimes his brother was too predictable for words, and yet Sam was still missing something here. But so was Dean.

"I'm not trying to mess with you, Dean. It's what you said. Leverage. The vamps can use Lisa and Ben against you."

"But we don't have the Alpha anymore," Dean protested. “We got nothing they want.”

"The other vamps might not know that. And they were connected to you. The one who bit you knew who you were. We have to assume all of them do. The Alpha--"

"Sam--"

"No, _listen_. They know you and you have outside connections. Christian might be married but he's got a demon in him and everyone else, well. Leverage. You're the only one who--"

"Had," Dean grated. "Had outside connections."

"That's semantics, Dean, and you know it."

"No. Just, no." He took a swig from the flask. "Even if you're right, they don't know where the house is. I made sure I wasn't followed."

Sam took a breath. Let it out. Found something like patience, because there wasn't another option here. "The Alpha knew you. You want to gamble on what else he picked up? We can't be sure that filling him full of dead man's blood stopped his Jedi mind tricks. Even if it did, he was loose a long time after we gave you the cure. We don't know--"

"Jesus. Stop. Okay? I get it." Dean dug his phone out of his pocket and then shook it, making a face. "It's dead. Fucking vamp."

Keeping an eye on the road, Sam pulled out his own phone and handed it over. Dean punched in a number from memory and turned away, hunched towards the passenger window. There was a long silence punctuated by the thrum of the wheels on the road and Dean's shallow breathing and the faint, tinny ring of Lisa's phone on the other end of the line.

"Fuck," Dean said under his breath. "Yeah. Lise, uh. It's me. I'm. I don't want to be doing this and I'm sorry, I wouldn't be calling unless it was important, but you've got to -- you and Ben, you've got to take a long weekend out of town. If you're not at home go with what you've got, just get out of there. Take the gun I left you. I'm just. I'm sorry. I'm sorry to do this to you again. Head to Bobby's if you can. Don't go back to the house until one of us calls, okay? I'll explain, I will, but please go. This is real, it's too much to get into over the phone but--"

The voicemail must have ended because Dean broke off. Pocketed Sam's phone and kind of collapsed against the seat.

"That's probably a bad idea with the amount of blood you've lost," Sam said when Dean unscrewed the cap of the flask again.

But Dean was apparently done talking to him. Sam could have plucked the flask from his hands, easy, but instead he turned back to the road.

 

 

"You said you didn't care. Before."

They were crossing the border between Illinois and Indiana and it had been an hour since Dean had uttered a word. He'd worked steadily through the flask, enough that his voice carried a faint slur that was more a vagueness than anything else and he didn't look at Sam when he spoke.

"Care about what?" Sam asked.

"Lisa and Ben."

Sam only had the flicker of headlights and streetlamps and the glow from billboards to go by, but he didn't like the lines that his brother's face had settled into. He couldn't begin to name what was there, though, and it didn’t seem to be an immanent hunger for his blood, so he let it go and kept his attention on the road. Thought about the difference between what Dean might want to hear and the truth. Thought about how little Dean would trust whatever he said anyway.

"I don't. But you do. And the vamps know that."

"Ah, so it's strategic." Dean shifted in his seat, one arm curling around his middle. "Why not just use them as bait, then?"

Sam took in his brother's pallor, the way he was hunched over in his seat, squinting against every passing bit of brightness. "Dude, you're not going to puke in your own car, are you? Because there's nowhere to pull off right now."

Dean's head came up and he scowled blurrily at Sam. "Answer the question."

"I told you. _You_ care about them."

There was a long silence. "I saw it," Dean said finally. "When I drank the antidote last time."

Sam took a moment to strip the impatience out of his voice. "Saw what, Dean."

"You." And now Sam knew his brother was drunk for certain, because it had been months and Dean had never brought this up, not once. He'd never said how he'd figured it out and Sam had thought it better not to ask. "You were standing at the end of the alley. Just watching. When he turned me."

Sam couldn't help his fascination. "You saw that? How? Did the antidote give you some kind of vision?"

It was the wrong thing to say.

"I know it's not your fault," Dean said, then sank into himself, sank deep, like he wasn't planning on coming back up any time soon.

 

 

Sam waited until they were a good hundred miles away from the warehouse before he found a rest stop off the highway and pulled as close to the bathroom doors as he could get. It was going to be dawn soon. The risk of some good Samaritan noticing the horror-flick-extra in the Impala’s passenger seat would only increase with daylight, not to mention that Sam himself had streaks of blood up to his elbows and spatters all over his shirt. When the engine cut off Dean shifted and shot him an incurious look.

"Stay here a minute," Sam said.

He checked the men's room to make sure it was empty and then grabbed their duffels and the first aid kit from the trunk. After he got the passenger door open he had to tug on Dean's arm to get him going, but once Dean made it to his feet he moved under his own power, following Sam wordlessly to the men's room. There wasn't a lock on the door. Not much they could do about that except hope it was late enough they wouldn't be interrupted.

Dean leaned on one of the sinks, avoiding the mirror, his eyes slitted against the fluorescent glare. "I really need a shower," he said again.

Sam dropped the bags and dug out Dean's zippered shaving kit and a towel. "Strip off the bloody stuff."

It was slow going and in the end Sam had to push Dean's fumbling hands aside and do it himself. Bare of his shirts, the dried blood painting Dean's skin ended in a semi-circle where the collar of his tee-shirt had been and started again at his wrists. His hand kept drifting up to cover his eyes. Sam wet the towel at one of the faucets and rubbed it with soap from Dean's kit, then handed it over. Dean swiped at his neck, at his face, but he was sloppy about it, missing too much, so Sam ended up taking the towel back.

Dean let Sam wipe the flaking blood from his face and neck and hands, standing there like he'd removed himself from the room, left his body behind. Sam was... uncomfortable, Dean’s flesh clammy and chilled under his hands. Sam finished as best he could then turned on the warm water in the sink nearest Dean. Handed him a bottle of shampoo. Dean just held it, weighing it in his hand like it meant something, the rushing water muffling his uneven breathing.

"You got some of its blood, you know, in case?" Dean asked. He'd closed his eyes, the lids reddened where he'd been rubbing at them.

Sam pulled the shampoo bottle out of Dean's hands. Popped it open. "Yeah, it's in the trunk, and we still have the rest of the stuff for the cure if we need it. Dunk your head."

Dean obeyed, wetting down his crusted hair, eyes squeezed shut. Sam grabbed one of his hands, squirted shampoo into his palm, and watched as Dean tried to wash away the vamp's blood.

Sam studied his brother's bent back. Almost two hours had passed since Dean had been exposed and though he was definitely showing signs of light sensitivity, he hadn't mentioned anything about his hearing. Last time symptoms had developed almost immediately -- Dean had been freaking out on him before they'd even made it back to the motel room, complaining about how loud everything was, how bright, all his senses kicked up ten notches. This time he was weirdly passive, resigned in the way he’d been at the worst moments of the year before Stull. Sam could pull up the memory of how much that had terrified the old him, watching his brother give up by degrees; but now it was just another thing he had to work around.

Dean straightened out of his crouch over the sink, pinkish water running in rivulets down his neck and shoulders. A goose egg was purpling through the short hair behind his left ear where the vamp had probably slammed his head against the concrete floor. Great.

"My head is killing me. The lights..."

"Is it as bad as last time?" Sam asked, handing him a towel.

Dean ducked his head, drying off, gingerly avoiding the sodden bandage on his neck. "What? I dunno, I just -- can we get out of here?"

"Lemme see the bite."

Maybe it was the threat to Lisa and Ben, maybe it was blood loss and the booze, but Dean had gone pliant, turning when Sam tugged at his elbow. The skin of his shoulders and chest was white and prickled with gooseflesh, cold as a fish belly under Sam's hands. So, factor in shock and probably a concussion on top of the possible vamp infection. The odds here weren't adding up in their favor.

"Maybe I should call the Samuel in on this one," Sam said, peeling the bandage away from Dean's neck.

Dean crossed his arms over his bare chest, voice uneven. "You know how to make the cure now. We don't need him."

"That's not what I was talking about."

Sam tossed the used bandage into the trash and pulled some fresh gauze out of the kit. The wounds were swollen and raw but at least the bleeding had stopped. Dean flinched at his touch but didn't pull away, so Sam smeared on some antiseptic cream and taped the new bandage in place. There wasn't much else he could do at this point but get Dean back into the car.

Dean just stood there while Sam changed his own shirt, washed away the lingering traces of blood in the sink and wiped down their prints with the towel, then balled up the towel with the bloody clothes and stuffed them back into the duffel. Clean as a rest stop bathroom was gonna get him and dressed in dry clothes, whatever remnant of adrenalin that had got Dean this far had drained away. He stumbled over his feet at the threshold and Sam practically had to haul him back out to the Impala.

On the bright side, he didn't argue this time when Sam dumped him in the passenger seat.

 

 

As he slid back into the car after paying for gas just outside Elkhart, Sam caught Dean prodding at his gums, looking for fangs.

"Anything?"

Dean dropped his hand like Sam had walked in on him jacking off. Then the smell of Sam's breakfast burrito must have hit him because he went a color Sam couldn't describe and scrabbled at his door handle. Got the door open and hung half out, back bent and taut, but nothing happened and after a minute he uncurled.

"I'm guessing that's a no on food for you," Sam said. "We're about an hour out. You gonna make it?"

He didn't get an answer. Dean dragged himself back into the car and slammed the door shut, then pressed his forehead against the window.

"Dean, I need you to tell me if you're, you know. Going to eat me."

"I'm not going to--" Dean's head rolled against the glass, eyes closed. "I managed to go longer than this last time without fucking killing anyone."

Which wasn't exactly true, but maybe vamps didn't count as people in this equation.

"Alright.” Sam took a couple of bites of burrito, adding up his observations, comparing them to the last time. "I think you're in the clear, anyway."

"You don't know that," Dean muttered.

"It's been three hours, you're not sprouting fangs or super-hearing--"

"Sam--"

"The light sensitivity is probably the concussion--"

"You don't know," Dean plowed right over him. Something in his face wound tighter and tighter with every word. "You don't know, you can't be _sure_ , it could just be taking longer 'cause I didn't get as much this time. You don't fucking _know_ , Sam."

"Okay, I get it." Sam popped the rest of the burrito into his mouth and crumpled up the wrapper.

"You really don't."

"I think I do," Sam said. "I've been possessed a couple of times. I get it."

"Getting it and _understanding_ aren't the same thing," Dean said to the window, and then it was like he'd switched off or tuned Sam out. Sam didn't remember him doing this before Stull but now it happened all the time. Dean, just going away in front of him, lights out even if his eyes were open.

Maybe with a soul Sam would have known the right thing to say, but somehow he doubted it.

 

 

When they turned onto Weinbach Avenue Dean was still curled up in the passenger seat with his hand shading his eyes against the sun like maybe the vamp had hit him harder than Sam had first assumed. Or maybe Dean just got migraines now. There was a lot Sam didn't know about that year they'd been apart.

Mid-morning on a Saturday in the Battle Creek suburbs wasn't exactly the most inconspicuous time of day. Sam frowned at the little Civic parked in Lisa’s drive and let the Impala drift past the house. The crust of snow in the front yard was trampled by kid-sized tracks and what might have been the half-frozen remains of some kind of snow fort held a strategic position near the front porch. Ben seemed a little old for snow forts, but then again Sam didn't exactly have the best grip on age-appropriate activities for kids.

He circumnavigated the block, inventoried all the obvious approaches to the house, and then pulled into Lisa's driveway. It took a few long moments before Dean stirred, running a hand through his flattened hair. Sam knew he hadn't been asleep but his head swiveled groggily anyway and he stared at the house like he hadn't known all along that this was their destination. Stared at it the way he'd stared at their old house in Lawrence, something like dread in the set of his jaw.

And then he noticed Lisa's car.

Dean was out of the Impala and onto the front porch before Sam could say a word. Apparently he still had a key because by the time Sam made it out of the car Dean had the front door open and was slipping inside.

Fuck. Dean didn't have a gun. As far as Sam knew he didn't have any weapons on him at all.

Dean was already yelling when Sam burst through the front door, gun drawn. He had Lisa backed up against the living room wall, his hands fisted at his sides, tendons standing out in his neck, his voice strangled like he couldn't get enough air to really scream. Sam came up short a few feet away, taking in Lisa's round eyes and set jaw, her hands planted flat on the wall behind her, then left to make a quick sweep of the house.

His brother's voice drifted after him, only slightly buffered by the walls. "I called, I _called_ , why the fuck are you still here?" Sam couldn't hear whether Lisa had any response but from the sound of it even if she had it would have been steamrolled by Dean's ranting.

Lisa's new place was about the same size as the house in Cicero, minus a guest bedroom but with a little room that she probably used as an office. Ben's bed was neatly made, his bedroom floor mostly picked up with the exception of a scattered handful of Legos around some kind of half-completed, intricate spacecraft. The master bedroom was in more of a disarray: bedclothes still rumpled, an overflowing laundry basket at the foot of the bed. People were creatures of habit and Lisa's bathroom was set up nearly identical to the one in Cicero, down to the contents of her medicine cabinet.

Downstairs, Dean's shouting was a muffled litany of rage.

Sam spared a moment to consider the prescription bottles lined up on one of the shelves in the medicine cabinet. It had been months since Lisa had cut Dean off but two of the little orange plastic bottles still bore his name. Sam didn't recognize the name of one of the medications but the other was familiar from the pile of scrips Dean had left the hospital with after Alastair had nearly killed him. The pills rattled when Sam plucked the bottle from the shelf, half full.

The rest of the house was more of the same. There was no sign that the vamps had found the place yet and no sign of the kid, either.

Back in the living room Lisa had gone pale and Dean was edging towards panic. He was repeating himself, looked like he didn't even know what he was saying anymore. "You can't _be_ here, you can't, why the fuck didn't you leave, I told you I told you to _leave_. I'm not joking around about this shit, Lisa, do you think this isn't _real_?"

Lisa swallowed, some of the shock leaving her face, her eyes hardening. "Dean--"

"When I call and tell you to leave I'm not, I'm not doing it for fun. I told you what would happen. I told you, why didn't you listen? Do you want to die bloody? You and Ben? Is that it? Because how could you, how could you still be here when I called and warned you, this isn't, this isn't some kind of _game_ \--"

Sam found himself waiting to see what Lisa would do. Dean hadn't exactly been forthcoming about what had gone down with Lisa and Ben while he'd been vamped last time or about what had happened when he'd finally gotten her on the phone afterwards. And Sam hadn’t seen his brother melt down this completely in years, not even during the worst of their fighting over Ruby and the demon blood. Certainly never in front of a civilian. Sam’s old self, the one who had lived through the memories he had of Dean before Stull, would have been appalled. All he could muster up now was a mild curiosity.

Dean swiveled a little at Sam's presence, including him in the next volley. "Where's Ben? We've got to, we've got to get them out of here."

"Ben's not here," Sam offered. Rather than calm his brother down it ramped him back up again. Dean made a wild, abruptly truncated gesture and turned the full force of his attention back onto Lisa.

"Jesus, Lisa, we think they know where you live, are you listening to me? It doesn't matter what I want, it doesn't matter what you want, they don't care that we're not, that I'm not--" Dean broke off, close to panting now, and when he uncurled one of his fists a tremor ran through his hand.

Lisa just stood there while Dean's ragged breathing filled the sudden silence. Then she crossed her arms over her chest and pushed off from the wall a little and Dean stumbled backwards a step in response.

"Are you done?" Lisa asked, firm and a little flat, and Sam had to admire how she managed to keep all but a hint of a quaver out of her voice.

Dean shook his head, but didn't say anything else.

"I take it you called and left me a message?"

"Yeah," Dean rasped.

"Okay," Lisa bit off. "I plugged my phone in to recharge last night and forgot about it. So I didn't hear your message."

"Oh," Dean said, his hand drifting back up to his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose. Whatever was left of the rage drained away just like that, leaving him slumped and shaky, back to that disconnected version of Dean from the rest stop bathroom.

“I get that you were worried, but this, just now?” Lisa circled her hand in the air between them and then crossed her arms over her chest, her jaw tight. “This doesn’t happen again. Ever.”

Dean didn’t lift his head, avoided looking either of them in the eye, but he nodded.

"Hey Lisa, where do you keep your dishes?" Sam asked, fingering the prescription bottle in his pocket.

Lisa and Dean turned nearly identical blank gazes on him, like they'd both forgotten he was there. "The cabinet to the right of the sink," Lisa answered.

"Ben's at my sister's, up in Kalamazoo," Lisa was telling Dean when Sam returned with a glass of water. "He's spending the weekend with his cousins."

"Good," Dean said unsteadily. "That's, that's good." He took the water when Sam held it out to him, blinked when Sam pressed one of the pills into his other hand.

"For the headache," Sam said, watching closely as Dean tossed it back.

Now that Dean had stopped screaming at her a hint of concern seeped into Lisa's face as she took in what a mess he was. "What happened?".

Dean shook his head.

"Vampires," Sam said.

"Vampires," Lisa echoed, then turned to Dean. "I thought you said they were mostly extinct?"

And wasn't that interesting. Sam waited but Dean didn't volunteer anything more. Just stood there holding his water glass like he had no idea what he was supposed to do with it, no idea what to do now that he'd accepted that Lisa hadn't left, was still here, was right in front of him.

"Not so much anymore," Sam said. "They've been recruiting."

It was too soon for the pills to have kicked in but Dean's stare had drifted towards the floor, just this side of completely checked out again. Sure, Dean was the king of sudden mood swings at the best of times, but this was something else -- and Lisa wasn’t acting like the space cadet version of his brother was new to her.

"Dean," Lisa said, taking a step towards him. She didn't reach out, didn't move to touch him, but her attention had sharpened. "Dean, what's going on?"

"He didn't tell you," Sam realized aloud, the missing pieces of Dean’s estrangement from the Braedens clicking into place. "Right. Of course he didn't."

That got Dean's attention. The same expression he'd worn back in Veritas's lair flooded his face. Pure murder.

"Sam, why don't you get yourself a drink," Lisa ordered, taking them both in with narrowed eyes. "There's beer in the fridge. Take your time."

Right.

 

There was indeed beer in Lisa's refrigerator. Not El Sol this time, but something local: Bell's Two-Hearted Ale. Sam popped off the cap and took a sip. He thought there'd be more shouting but instead only a low murmur of voices reached him, mostly Lisa's from the pitch, and after awhile even that dropped off into silence. Sam was halfway through his second bottle when Lisa appeared in the kitchen doorway carrying the laundry basket from her bedroom, her face set in lines of exhaustion that hadn’t been there a few minutes ago. She shot him an indignant look and then stalked past him into the adjoining laundry room, so he followed.

"Those weren't painkillers," Lisa accused, dropping the basket onto the concrete floor with a thunk.

"No," Sam agreed.

He watched her yank open the washer and pull at the knobs to start the flow of water. "He's practically a zombie, Sam. What did you give him?" she asked, dumping a capful of detergent and the clothes from the basket into the washer and slamming the cover shut.

Sam shrugged and tossed her the prescription bottle. Raised a brow when she managed to catch it one handed. She glanced at the label and blanched.

"He's got a concussion and you gave him Xanax?" Lisa hissed. "What the hell were you thinking?"

"He was out of control."

Lisa just stared at him. "That wasn't your brother out of control," she said after a long moment, voice flat again. "Not by a long shot."

Sam settled against the door frame and took another sip of beer. "Really?"

Something of his genuine curiosity must have leaked through, because Lisa cocked her head, aiming the kind of distaste at him that he'd gotten used to receiving from Samuel.

"So he's out already?" Sam asked.

Lisa's moue of disgust deepened. "Not yet. He's in the shower." She shook the pill bottle. "You took this from my bathroom?"

Sam shrugged.

"You're not what I expected," Lisa said.

"What did you expect?"

Lisa's mouth turned down, not quite a frown. "Not someone who would drug his brother because he was upset."

Even in what were obviously her chores-around-the-house sweatpants and t-shirt, her hair back in a ponytail, there was something poised about Lisa. Maybe it was all the yoga.

"I might have only met you the one time but I recognized you, you know." Lisa pressed on before Sam could say anything. "I thought maybe... I don't know what I thought. But when I found out you weren't dead after all everything made sense."

"Everything?"

"You weren't very subtle. Watching us from across the street back in Cicero? You're lucky the neighbors didn't call in a peeping tom." Her expression went brittle. "I'm pretty sure Dean saw you once or twice. But my guess is you didn't think about the effect that would have on him. Given that he believed you were in hell at the time."

So, Dean had told her about his stint in hell. That was unexpected.

"Well, technically," Sam said, "I was in hell at the time. Still am."

"What?"

"I'm told it's an interesting philosophical question."

Lisa stared at him for a beat and then lifted her chin, ignoring the obvious bait. "Does it explain why you didn't tell your brother you were alive? A year, Sam. He thought you were suffering the whole time. The way he did."

"Yeah, I know."

"You know? I don't think you do. You watched us eat dinner through the window a couple of times and you think you know anything about that year?"

"You're protective of him," Sam said, tipping back the last swig of beer. "It's nice, he didn't get much of that growing up."

"You think this is just about Dean? Jesus Christ, what the hell is wrong with you? Who do you think made sure your brother didn't fucking kill himself those first few months? What do you think that was like, for me and Ben?"

"He promised he wouldn't," he said evenly, rolling the empty beer bottle between his hands. Sam knew in a distant kind of way that given Dean's past flirtations with suicide what Lisa was saying should have rocked him. But he wasn't that Sam anymore, and so it didn't.

"It doesn't work that way, and--"

"He's still alive, isn't he?"

"--and the whole time, you were alive, out playing hunter."

Sam let the bottle slide through his hand, until it dangled from his fingers. "He wouldn't have stayed if I'd told him I was back. You've got to know that."

Lisa flashed teeth, a sardonic grimace. "Aren't you the hero. You think you did him a favor, not telling him? Or was that for my benefit?"

His own smile felt tight on his face, unfamiliar. He shifted his grip on the neck of the beer bottle. Watched Lisa's attention drift down to his hand, to the bottle, and something in her face went still, careful. Maybe she'd seen Dean hold a bottle like this, maybe she'd had to pull him out of a bar fight or two. Her gaze slid past him to the open doorway and he couldn’t help a laugh at how obviously she was telegraphing her fear.

"Is something about this funny to you?" Lisa asked, a hint of nerves creeping into her tone. This happened sometimes since he got topside -- people came down with the jitters around him and he wasn’t always sure what he’d done to set them off. She didn't wait for his answer, just pushed past him back out into the kitchen. Sam let her go, gave her a moment, and then followed.

Lisa was leaning against the kitchen counter, one hand fingering the knob of one of the drawers. Smart, not giving him her back, even though he was Dean's brother. He wasn't sure what had rattled her, probably the bottle, so he set it down on the counter top and turned to run his fingers over the edges of the snapshots tacked to a cork board on the wall by the phone. She must have brought it from Cicero when Dean moved them.

"He looks happy," Sam said. "He's smiling, anyway, but with Dean you have to look at the eyes. He can't lie worth shit if you look him in the eye."

He could hear Lisa easing one of the drawers open behind him. "Those a new set? I bet Dean got them custom made."

The drawer clicked shut. "What?"

"The knives. They're silver, right? Probably got them for your birthday, or Christmas? Weird gift from anyone else, but you knew what he meant by them. Silver, for protection. The Winchester way of going steady, I guess. Where was this taken?"

He turned around, holding out a photo of Dean and Ben covered in sunscreen and sand. Dean was terrified of flying so the answer was obvious but he waited anyway. Lisa stood stiff in her corner, a silver plated knife in one hand. Sharper than it looked, he'd bet.

"Lake Michigan?" Sam said, nodding. "He probably taught you how to sharpen those too, huh? What else did he teach you and the kid?"

Out here he could hear the high pitched sound of water rushing through the pipes above them, Dean in the shower.

"What are you doing, Sam?" Lisa asked, low, her fist white-knuckled around the handle of the knife.

Sam glanced at the picture of his brother sunburned and smiling for the camera on some Midwestern lake shore and back over at Lisa and shook his head. "Nothing. Dean cares about you. I know that." He tried on a grin, tried for friendly, knew by her face he wasn't hitting the mark, even though he meant it as much as he was able. "I don't have any reason to hurt you, Lisa. I'm here to make sure nothing does."

"What's wrong with you?" she asked after a long moment. Her grip had loosened around the knife but she didn't put it down.

He remembered going to the ocean with Jess, a long time ago. The way they got sand everywhere, the taste of salt on her skin. But Jess had died and Sam knew that had still ached when he'd jumped into the pit with Lucifer, but now it didn't.

"Left my soul in hell," he said.

"Literally? You mean... you actually meant that. What you said earlier." Lisa tilted her head, like she was adding him up. Factoring in what she knew from Dean's behavior since Sam had shown up on her doorstep. It wasn't much, but then Dean didn't usually fall for airheads. And it was kind of nice, being honest about it with someone who wasn't a hunter. A relief.

"Yep." Sam shrugged, then glanced at the photo in his hand. "You still have his picture up. His pills in your medicine cabinet."

"Sam," Lisa said, and now her voice was soft, something other than wary distrust or disgust filtering into her expression, though he noticed she hadn't let go of the knife.

"You were right to break it off with him. He understands that, you know."

Lisa shook her head, but Sam couldn't tell whether it was in disagreement or something else. "That's why you're... different?" she asked. "Can you feel it? Whatever's happening to your soul?"

A laugh hiccoughed out before he knew it was going to happen. "Nope. Didn't even know it was gone."

"How--"

Sam laughed again. "It's a long story."

Lisa's attention drifted up to the ceiling, towards the sound of rushing water. “I didn’t know you’d dosed him up with Xanax when I left him alone. I should make sure--”

"Probably a good idea." Sam half turned, tacked the photograph back in place on the cork board.

She took the knife with her but at least this time she gave him her back.

 

 

By the time Sam had finished a check of the outside perimeter and returned to the kitchen the rushing-water sound had cut off, leaving the house blanketed in a bright silence.

A flock of Deans smiled at him from the wall by the phone. Dean with his arm draped around Lisa or Ben, Dean looking as relaxed as Sam had ever seen him. In one snapshot his head was thrown back in laughter at something just out of frame. In another someone had caught him unawares as he dozed on a lawn chair, a paperback book loose in one of his hands. The image was too small for Sam to read the title but the cover was well worn, the spine cracked. Sam plucked the photo from the cork board and flipped it over. A neat cursive on the reverse recorded the date: a month and a half after Stull. On closer scrutiny, Dean's face was drawn even in slumber and the knuckles of the hand holding the book were scabbed over.

Back at the house in Cicero the cork board full of pictures had seemed thrown together, just another part of the shifting tumult of life. Here it looked as carefully preserved as a shrine.

Sam replaced the photo of his sleeping brother and traced his way through the kitchen to the living room. Paused at the foot of the staircase and listened, but all he could hear was the ticking of an antique clock on the mantel over the fireplace.

At the top of the stairs he found Lisa sitting with her knees drawn up and her back to the closed bathroom door, her head in her hands. He must have made a sound because she jerked a little, one hand flying to the knife where it rested next to her on the carpet. Then she blew out a breath and let the knife go. Rubbed her face with both hands.

"He lock you out?"

Lisa tilted her head to stare up at him, washed out in the dim light of the hall. "What does it look like?"

Sam felt his mouth quirk, didn't suppress it. "Looks like he locked you out."

"What happened?" she asked.

"We took down a nest of vamps last night. One of them threatened you."

"I gathered that much." Lisa looked away, down the hallway towards her bedroom. “Is it... how do they know where we live?”

She didn’t know that Dean had been a vampire himself, that the vamps were connected by some kind of telepathy to their Alpha. She didn’t know because Dean hadn’t told her, and Dean hadn’t told her because... well, Sam wasn’t clear on that part.

Lisa picked up on his hesitation and took a breath, like she was running through some kind of mantra in her head.

“How long before they find us?”

She picked up the knife again, weighing it in her hand. It wouldn’t be much use against a vampire but at least she was prepared to try. She was something, Lisa. Most civilians would be a mess by now but the first time he’d met her she’d survived a thing that had looked like her kid and tried to eat her and had come out the other side okay.

“We’re not sure,” Sam said. “We’re not sure they’re even coming.”

“Better safe than sorry?” Her laugh was slightly shaky.

“Something like that. Look, we’re gonna take care of it.”

“Yeah, I know you will.” She spoke like she only half-believed her own words and was trying her best to ignore that fact. Fiddling with the knife, she hesitated before continuing. “Last time Dean was here. Do you know what happened? Why he..."

"Oh," Sam said. What would a souled guy do here? Tell the truth? Dean kept going on about not keeping secrets, but he’d also harangued Sam about time and place and empathy and how people should be treated. Sam wasn’t sure who he was supposed to be empathizing with here, though. It was all so contradictory. “I dunno--”

“It's just... he was really freaked out and I didn't know why.” Lisa shook her head. "I can usually... I used to at least have a grip on why, what set him off, but..."

"He never told me what happened," Sam said. "But--"

"Sam--" Dean's voice punched hoarse and muffled through the door, and they both turned.

"Thought he'd passed out." Sam jiggled the doorknob. "Dean, let me in," he called.

Lisa pulled herself to her feet, stretched up onto her toes and slid something from the top of the door jamb. Handed him a slim nail. "I'd really rather not have to buy a new door."

"Why didn't you just open it?" Sam asked, turning the nail over in his hand.

She didn't answer. Just backed up to lean against the wall opposite the door, her arms crossed tight over her chest. Sam popped the lock and shoved but the door only moved inward about an inch, enough to give him a glimpse of one of his brother's bare feet. After a moment Sam heard the rustle of fabric and the door gave way, giving him space to squeeze through into the bathroom.

Dean sat hunched over his knees against the tiled bathroom wall, dressed in a clean Henley and a pair of track pants he must have left in Lisa's closet. The clothes he'd changed into at the rest stop were wadded up in a corner next to the tub. His hair was plastered to his forehead in damp spikes and water still dripped down the back of his neck to soak a small wet patch into the collar of his shirt. The uncovered fang marks stood out livid and ugly on the side of his throat.

Sam glanced back at Lisa and shut the door behind him.

The mirror over the sink was still half fogged over, the shower head dripping an uneven patter and plunk of wasted water. Moisture condensed into a thin film on Sam's skin, the room still muggy as a sauna from Dean's protracted shower. Faint traced letters were fading from the mirror, an E, a T, two L's. Ben's doing, probably. At twelve Dean had been obsessed with Metallica too.

"It'd be nice if you'd stop treating me like I'm a moron," Dean said, soft and a little blurry, without looking up from the floor. "I can recognize my own meds, you know."

Sam stepped over him and took a seat on the closed toilet. "So why'd you take it?"

Dean let out a mangled sound, something between a laugh and a cough. When his head lifted, Sam could see the vagueness of the tranquilizer glazing his eyes. "So what's the plan, Sam? Lise can handle herself but she's not a hunter. And I'm down for the count."

"No sign of 'em yet," Sam shrugged. "I could call Samuel in."

"I thought," Dean said slowly. "I thought if I wasn't here they'd be okay."

"You know that's not how it works."

Dean rubbed at his face with one hand and blew out a puff of air. "I think I liked it better when you were faking it."

"Like that's a surprise." Sam clasped his hands between his knees and studied the top of his brother's head. "You ever going to tell her what happened?"

"Doesn't matter," Dean said finally. "What would it change?"

Sam's stomach cramped in hunger. Maybe he should leave Dean here to mope and go get something to eat. "Probably nothing."

Dean nodded. Shielded his eyes with one hand, like he had in the car. He hadn't had breakfast and paired with the booze and the blood loss it was only a matter of time before the drugs pulled him under.

"Your head still bothering you?" Sam asked.

Dean nodded again. Gingerly touched the edge of the goose egg.

Sam eyed the slumped posture, the way Dean was sliding by increments into bonelessness and yet remained clenched fist tight at the core. "What about the rest?"

"You mean am I sprouting fangs? No," Dean snorted. He didn’t look at Sam, but there was a bitter twist to his mouth. "Looks like I dodged that bullet."

Sam didn’t say I told you so, but after a moment’s silence Dean’s hand dropped from his face and his chin came up and he let out a sound that was more an exhale than a laugh. “Not gonna rub it in?”

“D’you want me to?”

Dean sagged against the wall, heavy-lidded and drifting. He didn’t track when Sam stood up and swiped the condensation from his forehead with the back of one wrist.

“Come on,” Sam said. “You pass out in here and we’ll have to step over you to take a piss.”

“There’s another bathroom downstairs,” Dean mumbled.

Sam kicked lightly at his ankle. “Get up. I’m not carrying you.”

In the end Sam had to grip his brother under the arms and haul him off of the floor like a sack of cement. Dean pawed at him in protest the whole way up, his face going ashy and slick with sweat at the sudden change in altitude. Once Dean’s feet were under him he managed a loose-limbed stumble under his own power out into the hallway, but he came up short at the sight of Lisa and had to palm the door frame for balance.

Sam squeezed past him and eyed Lisa. “He should lie down before gravity does the job for him.”

Lisa nodded but her attention was locked on the bruised holes in Dean’s neck. “Jesus,” she breathed. “Vampires, I mean, you said vampires, but--”

Dean shook his head and edged away from Sam, away from Lisa, one hand trailing along the wall as he lurched towards the stairs.

“Sore subject,” Sam said. “Dean, where are you going?”

“Downstairs.”

“No, no, wait,” Lisa said, catching him by the sleeve. His head shot up and around and he twisted in her grip and she immediately backed off, hands out and open at her sides. “Stay up here. In the bedroom.”

“No,” Dean said, mulish.

“Dean--” Lisa looked to Sam then, as if Sam should be able to convince him. Sam could overpower him easy at this point but short of tying him to the bed it’d be pointless. And Dean was far less susceptible to manipulation than you’d think. It’d been a long time since their father had been able to make him guess how high with a look.

“What’s the hangup?” Sam asked him.

Dean shook his head. “No hangup.” But he didn’t meet their eyes as he started picking his way down the stairs, leaning heavily on the banister.

Lisa’s mouth went tight and she nodded to herself like she got it. “Your brother’s a gentleman,” she bit off, and then yanked open a hall closet, pulling out a knit afghan.

 

 

Sam left Lisa behind and did a quick circuit of the inside of the house, checking the doors and windows starting in the cellar, where a folded ping-pong table rubbed elbows with an old stationary bike and a stacked pile of worn cardboard boxes labeled “xmas” -- up to the second floor bedrooms. One of the windows in the master bedroom overlooked the backyard where the snow was just as trampled as the front, useless for tracking any new footprints. A concrete patio, empty of everything but a covered gas grill, butted up against the detached garage where patio furniture and bicycles were probably stored for the winter.

It was all very sitcom suburbia. Sam still couldn’t imagine his brother living like this for a year, couldn’t picture Dean carefully turning pieces of barbecue-sauce slathered chicken on the grill. Maybe Lisa did the grilling -- it wasn’t like Dean had a lot of experience. Sam certainly didn’t. He’d always left the beach cookouts up to Brady and Jess and their friends.

Sam had held the photograph of Dean stretched out asleep with a book in a folding lounge chair, seen the incongruous set of golf clubs in the closet back in Cicero. He’d watched from a distance as Dean sat down to a dinner table, as he mucked around doing yard work. Once he’d even followed Dean to one of Ben’s baseball games but it had been like watching his brother inhabiting a character from one of the reruns they’d watched on countless shitty TVs in countless shitty motel rooms growing up. That buttoned-down guy hadn’t even looked like Dean, not really. The body language had been all wrong, too contained; Dean playing the role of the keeps-mostly-to-himself neighbor, the one who would surprise you by tossing your ball back for you with a pitcher’s perfect aim if it strayed into his yard.

Maybe it was what Dean had always wanted, maybe it was something Sam had wanted years and years ago, but it all seemed so painfully sedate, so unchanging, so mind-numbingly boring.

 

 

Downstairs Dean was still trying to pretend he wasn’t going to pass out any minute now. He was on the couch at least, propped heavily against one arm, his boots planted on the floor as if that proved something. Lisa sat at the other end of the couch with the afghan wadded in her hands. They weren’t looking at one another and the air hung heavy with whatever they’d been saying before they heard Sam’s footsteps descending the stairs.

“Sam,” Lisa said, looking up, “there’s a first aid kit under the sink in the kitchen.”

The vamp bite, right. Their kit out in the Impala was probably better stocked but Sam didn’t argue, just retreated to the kitchen. The cabinet under the sink was full of cleaning supplies: a squat bottle of bleach, a spray bottle of electric blue window solution, a shriveled sponge sitting on top of a green can of Comet cleanser, some kind of lemon-fresh liquid for the floors. The kit he was looking for was back behind the collection of plastic bottles, not exactly convenient for an emergency. He pulled the little red vinyl bag clear of the cabinet and unzipped it on the counter to make sure it was decently stocked.

Voices drifted in from the living room as Sam poked around the packages of gauze and anti-bacterial cream and standard plastic band-aids, the kind good for splinters and scrapes and not much else.

“I’m not doing that again,” Lisa said evenly. “I’m not going to uproot Ben on the off-chance that--”

“Lisa--”

“No. We can’t live our lives like that, Dean. We moved once and I understood why, I did. I got it. But I’m not going to do this every time something happens. We’ve been over this.”

“It’d be the last time,” Dean grated. “You’d go and not tell me where. That way--”

“You’re not hearing me. We’re not going to move again. I know you’re worried, I know... but it wouldn’t be the last time. There’s always going to be something else.”

“You don’t understand.” Dean’s voice had gone low, miserable. “I brought this on you. I can’t--”

“You can,” Lisa said. “You’re going to have to, unless you and Sam are planning on tying us up and sticking us in your trunk. Maybe vampires will find us today, maybe they won’t. Maybe it’ll be a year from now and it will be some other kind of awful thing. Or maybe I’ll slip in the shower and crack my head open. Would that be your fault, too?”

“It’s not the same,” Dean said as Sam packed the kit back up, and sensing a lull in the argument, rejoined them in the living room.

“Yeah, it is.” Lisa turned at Sam’s approach, set aside the afghan and gestured for the first aid kit. “Thanks,” she said as Sam dropped it into her hands. Sam didn’t know if she had any idea what she was doing but she’d raised a kid and lived with Dean for a year so she probably at least had some experience with the ways of gauze and tape and terrible patients. It wasn’t like she was going to be performing surgery and the wounds were mostly closed up anyway.

Lisa scooted over on the couch and Dean held very still, staring straight ahead at the bank of windows that faced the front yard. The curtains had been drawn since the first time Sam had been in the room, casting everything in a sleepy dullness with just an edge of sunlight around the perimeter. Lisa turned Dean’s chin away an inch or two with one hand so she could get a better look at the wounds on his neck.

“So you’re staying, huh?” Sam said as she rummaged through the kit for a package of sterile gauze.

Dean closed his eyes, swallowed. Lisa didn’t answer right away. She tore open the paper package and pressed the gauze against Dean’s neck. “Here, hold this,” she told him, drawing up his hand to keep the gauze in place while she tore off a few lengths of tape. Dean obeyed with a sharp snatch of air like maybe the touch still hurt. “Sorry,” Lisa said into his ear. Sam was about to ask her again when her attention slid briefly in his direction.

“I’m going to my sister’s for the rest of the weekend,” she said. “Might stay through Monday.”

Dean just sat there with his eyes closed to everything, expressive as a store mannequin, while Lisa taped the gauze in place. Maybe he was ignoring them, maybe he was just done. Maybe none of the above, who knew. Since Dean had been turned in that alley Sam had lost the grip he thought he’d had on what his brother would do in any given moment. It was probably for the best; taking Dean for granted was lazy, unobservant. Might get them killed.

“Come on,” Lisa said to Dean once she’d finished. “Off with the boots.”

Sam crossed to the windows and twitched open the curtains a crack to scan the street outside. Lisa didn’t wait for Dean’s cooperation, just bent down and picked apart his laces, pulled the boots off herself. Then she zipped the first aid kit back up and stood looking down a moment at Dean before disappearing back into the kitchen. After a minute or two of silence Dean slumped against the couch cushions, blinking sluggishly.

The thought that Sam should say something arrived and left again just as quickly. Dean didn’t seem to remember he was there anyway, so Sam followed Lisa into the kitchen. Found it empty, but heard her banging around in the laundry room.

“You know, I do get it.” Lisa didn’t turn around as she pulled wet clothes out of the washer and stuffed them into the dryer. “Why he wants us to leave. I do. These things, I know they’re real. It’s just--”

Sam didn’t try to hide his smile. “You can’t live your life that way?”

“So you were listening. I thought it’d taken you too long to find that kit.” There was something wry in Lisa’s face when she threw him a glance over her shoulder. “I’ve got a twelve year old,” she said, as if that explained everything, and maybe it did. He kept underestimating her.

“I get more than he thinks I do,” she continued, her expression dropping into tired lines. “But what am I supposed to do with that?”

Sam leaned against the door to the laundry room, watching her slam the dryer door shut and start the machine tumbling. “Do with what?”

Lisa turned and crossed her arms over her chest, considering him. “No offense, Sam, but from what I’ve seen today I don’t think you’d understand.”

She was still pissed about the Xanax, then. He lifted a shoulder. “You’re probably right.”

Sam considered trailing after Lisa as she headed back upstairs to her bedroom to pack but decided another beer would be a better use of his time. While he was poking around in her fridge he came up with a bag of green grapes. He was popping one into his mouth when voices rose again from the living room.

“I can’t believe you’d risk Ben like this,” Dean grated. He’d apparently taken Lisa’s reappearance as an opportunity to rouse himself for one more kamikaze try.

Sam leaned against the doorway between the living room and kitchen, unnoticed. The back of Dean’s head bobbed above the couch like a fishing lure about to be dragged under the water. Lisa must have just bought the grapes, they were that crisp, but he probably should have washed them. Sam pulled another handful free of the bag as Lisa stopped at the foot of the stairs, a plastic grocery bag of trash in one hand.

“Ben’s not your responsibility any more,” Lisa snapped, her jaw set. Without glancing down, she nimbly tied the handles of the plastic bag together and pulled the knot tight with a jerk of her hands.

Sam could practically hear his brother’s teeth grinding from across the room. “You think I don’t know that?” he said. “I’m not saying he is. But Lisa--”

“Nothing is ever going to be enough, Dean. You want Ben to grow up like you did, is that what you think will keep him safe?” The words skittered out of her like she was trying to draw them back even as they escaped. She twisted the loose handles of the bag around her fingers, tight enough to turn the skin pink and white. “Because that worked out so well for you.”

There was a long, long silence, the air in the room thick with it. Beer with grapes was a strange combination, Sam decided, but it worked.

“No,” Dean said finally. Sam was beginning to be seriously impressed with his brother’s tolerance for benzodiazepines and booze -- his speech was slurred more than it had been twenty minutes ago, but still articulate. “That’s... that’s the last thing I want. The very last thing.”

“I know.” Lisa said. She looked away toward the curtained windows as if she was trying to see beyond them. “That’s why you have to let us go.”

Dean didn’t have a response to that, it seemed. Lisa nodded to herself and turned away, then came up short when she saw Sam standing there.

“Go ahead and help yourself, Sam,” she said curtly, gesturing at his bag of fruit.

Sam shrugged. “I already did.”

Lisa took a breath, like she was having some kind of internal argument, and then let it out.

“You’re both welcome to stay here while you, you know. Make sure. About the vampires.”

Sam hadn’t planned on asking. “Thanks,” he said.

“And anything you need, just -- it’s yours.” She hesitated then like she wanted to say something else. Her gaze went to the couch and she shook her head then disappeared up the stairs.

Dean had finally dragged his legs up onto the couch and was lying on his side, wilted against the cushions, the afghan still wadded up by his feet. Sam watched his body move with shallow even breaths, free of the twitchy restlessness he’d carried since the warehouse.

Sam had finished the grapes and tossed the bag of stems by the time Lisa returned, the sweats gone in favor of jeans and a sweater under a ski jacket, a small suitcase in one hand and her purse in the other.

“Well,” she said, and then stopped, taking in Dean’s apparent unconsciousness. “Um--”

“You’re welcome,” Sam said. She frowned, so that must have been the wrong thing to say. “Do you want me to tell him anything?”

Her frown smoothed out, so maybe this time he’d hit the bull’s eye, but she was shaking her head. “I don’t think there’s anything left to say,” she said too evenly, and he couldn’t quite read the emotion there. “I’ll be back on Monday.”

With that she swept by him and out the side door. He tossed the towel onto the counter and crossed to the living room windows, pulling the curtain aside to follow her progress out to her car. There was a soft sound behind him from the couch, a rustle of blankets. He waited until Lisa’s Honda turned the corner at the end of the block to let the curtain swing back into place.

“She’s gone,” he said, turning to face the couch. Dean was good, and sure the past 24 hours and the tranquilizer had taken their toll, but Sam knew Dean’s minute tells just like Dean knew his. Or had. Before. “You can stop faking now.”

Dean stirred but didn’t sit up. “Wasn’t faking,” he muttered, eyes still closed.

“Uh-huh.” Sam folded his arms over his chest and leaned against the window frame.

Dean’s mouth thinned out but he didn’t have anything to say to that, apparently. He blinked a couple of times in slow motion then squinted at Sam like even the muffled light was too much now. Sam tried to prod him once more but Dean had years of practice ignoring him when he wanted to and eventually he slipped into a real sleep.

Sam prowled the perimeter of the house again, searched through all the rooms, but there was no sign of anything out of the ordinary. He was beginning to suspect there never would be. Coming here had been his idea, what he’d thought Dean’s brother would have done, the right thing. Instead it was turning out to be a colossal waste of time with consequences he was going to have to work around for weeks, if Dean’s last trip to Battle Creek was any indication.

So much for the right thing.


End file.
